Was suing Napster users the biggest music screw up of all time?

The record companies who forced file-sharing website Napster into bankruptcy in 2001 have been credited with the label of the music industry’s biggest “screw-up of all time” in a list compiled by Blender magazine.

The closure of the pioneering website beat Dick Rowe – the talent scout who famously turned away The Beatles – to the top spot in the poll.

Many see the record companies’ failure to capitalise on Napster’s success as a fatal blow to the industry; that instead of devising a way to make money from the site’s tens of millions of users, it mearly dispersed users to other file-sharing networks such as Morpheus, Limewire, iMesh and Kazaa.

Following Rowe at Number Three was Motown Records founder Berry Gordy, who sold the label for a mere $60 million in 1988, subsequently resold for $500 million the following year.

More recent entries include WEA’s unprofitable resigning of R.E.M for $80 million in 1996 at Number 13, and their decision to drop rapper 50 Cent at Number 10.